Posted by Adam Zilliax, Last modified by Adam Zilliax on 07 October 2016 08:14 AM

Overview

Windows 8 introduced a new feature called "Fast Startup". This feature is disabled by Deep Freeze when Deep Freeze is installed on a client workstation. Enabling this feature will lead to workstations not shutting down when Deep Freeze is installed.

Details

Fast Startup utilizes hibernation to boot the computer faster without completely shutting down the computer. Windows does this by saving system info to a file upon shutdown. When you start your PC again, Windows uses that system info to resume your PC instead of restarting it.

You will not experience the benefits of Deep Freeze if the machine were to hibernate. Deep Freeze automatically disables Fast Startup upon installation.

Please note: Windows 10 workstations may re-enable the fast startup feature as feature upgrades are installed on the client systems. If your computer starts showing this behaviour after installing a feature upgrade of Windows 10 you will need to check the Fast Startup option in Control Panel --> Hardware and Sound --> Power Options by clicking on the link on the left side of the Control Panel titled "Choose what the power buttons do".

Resolution / Workaround

Deep Freeze 7.6 and later will automatically disable the "Fast Startup" feature during install or upgrade.

Background

The hibernation and Fast Startup feature of Windows both work in a similar manner. Both save a copy of the system state to the hard disk to either allow you to return to a given state after powering the computer off, or to speed up the boot of the system by skipping ahead of a lot of the normal startup process. This hibernation file is written to the the disk and cannot be exempted from Deep Freeze's protection, if the system where allowed to hibernate any changes to the hibernation file would be lost after the machine shut down resulting in loss of any data that was not saved to a thawed location. To prevent this loss of data Deep Freeze will block workstations from hibernating.

As the Fast Startup feature of Windows 8 and Windows 10 uses the same methods as Hibernation it is also impacted by the methods used to disable hibernation.